How to Enable a Hidden Stacks List View in OS X

Stacks are what list items and folders turn into when pulled into the Dock of OS X. There are several views for Stacks, like a grid, or a fan, or a list in modern OS X versions. But with a little secret defaults string, a list view can be enabled in prior releases of OS X too.

Here’s how to enable the secret Stacks list view for Dock stacks in OS X, which is now my new favorite way to use Stacks.

To get started, launch the Terminal app and type the following commands, first use the following defaults string:

defaults write com.apple.dock use-new-list-stack -bool YES

Hit return, and next you need to restart the Dock process by killing it from the terminal as well:

killall Dock

Now when you right-click (control-click) a Stacks icon in the Dock, you’ll see “List” as an option. Try it out, it’s pretty great!

The Mac Dock Stacks are nice but it has long needed a scrollable list view option, how neat is it that OS X actually has exactly that, it’s just hidden!?

If you want to disable the new list style and revert to the old one, type the following:

I don’t know why, but even w/ 10.5 Leopard I had a list view if I right clicked on the stack. In fact, I hated stacks till I found out I could change it to always be a list when I first got my new MbP. 10.6’s scrollable grid stack, and the charcoal UI for it is much nicer than what 10.5 had though. Still, I’ve always been able to do lists for stacks…